In the hallowed halls of Design with a Capital D University, fast trends and knockoffs are frowned upon. There is a canon to be respected and it is historical and there are established rules, and if you don't know the rules or speak the language then you can take your bad taste all the way to Wayfair Community College and GTFOH. Though we here at Afternoon Light have, on occasion, been accused of being education snobs, we can't help but find Design's disdain for trends offensively exclusionary. Worse still, missing an essence and some of the fun of what's truly modern now, especially as it pertains to shopping for home decor. With an increasing perecentage of our time being spent online in a wholly alternate universe (or metaverse?), with images from history being thrown at us at lightening speed often faster than we can even absorb them, reality and authenticy become increasingly subjective, and trends are just a byproduct. Strap in.
A college professor with thick frames, intent on putting his 8:30 AM students to sleep, might scrawl the word "simulacrum" on the blackboard in squeaky chalk, dotting the "i" twice for emphasis. He might launch into a lecture about the entrance of Disney World, that 3/4-scale American Main Street that seems like a reproduction of something real until the visitor clocks the colonial dress of the cashiers, the swinging Wild West doors, and the vaguely Victorian shingles. It's just a copy of a copy - a muddy collection of diluted concepts. The real thing never existed. But what to make of the fact that for 155 million people who visit Disney theme parks around the world each year, the experience of being on Main Street is very, very real?